The big problem of late Honorverse

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:The function the Rolands were designed to fulfill isn't really there any more, and a more balanced (and even larger) design will likely be created. I seem to remember something about a "notional 300k combatant" that RFC was discussing as the minimum ship necessary to carry out all the peacetime patrol functions the RMN will need.

Reworking the flag facilities may well be a reasonable stop-gap measure, but the Rolands may have other shortcomings that would limit their antipiracy capabilities in other ways (small craft hanger capacity, for instance, or limited/no brig space).

A Flight II Roland could have those redesigned, possibly at the expense of smaller missile loads.

On the 300k ton combatant: would that be a CL or a DD? We know the RMN does not assign ship types on mass, but on purpose. So what are the criteria for a DD and for a CL?

Or further construction of Avalons to replace older destroyers with more capable CLs which still require smaller crews.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

kzt wrote:Given that the entire RMN production capability was destroyed I have a clever idea what you might do with a bunch of underutilized shipyards...

If Havenite shipyards aren't capable of building Alliance tech ships without massive rebuilding and retooling, Silesian don't have a prayer of doing so either. Maybe they'd be able to build industrial ships - asteroid mining boats and the like - but warships would probably take a decade of reworking to do. Probably not even freighters of the standards Manticore is used to building.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They should focus on civilian ships. Indeed, mining ships and freighters may still have a market. Even if their freighters are inferior to what gets produced in Manticore, with most of the recent capacity converted to warship building, then lost, there's probably a hole in new ships and there could be demand, even with most of the RMMS turned inwards for the duration of the war with the Solarian League.

kzt wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They should focus on civilian ships. Indeed, mining ships and freighters may still have a market. Even if their freighters are inferior to what gets produced in Manticore, with most of the recent capacity converted to warship building, then lost, there's probably a hole in new ships and there could be demand, even with most of the RMMS turned inwards for the duration of the war with the Solarian League.

There were some 18,000 Manticoran Merchant Marine ships you could buy really cheap for a year or two. Like as in assume the bank loan.

And the SCN navy wasn't that bad. Their main problem wasn't tech, it was the people. And money invested in a SC site is a lot easier to justify than money invested in Haven. SC, at least the half that Manticore controls, is under Manticoarn law, so it's a whole lot easier to get a bank to lend money.

And manticoran banks don't have a lot of customers...

So if you assume that in fact Mantcore in going to attempt to police 6000 systems in gadzillion cubic lightyears they are going to need a lot of light vessels. Not super-advanced vessels, they need reliable vessels with technology that can be depended on and repaired when you are 100 light years from the nearest friendly vessel and 90 days from base.

Theemile wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:


I don't see how that would work.

We don't know the conditions in Silesia now (1923), but we do know what it was prior to the partition. So when the Wolfhounds were deployed under Sarnow in 1919, we know what environment they'd face. I don't see how a troop ship would help unless it were in the same system as the liberated prize, which means it would need to be travelling with the destroyer in the first place. If you're going to travel in multiple ships, then you may as well pair a Wolfhound with an older DD or CL, then you'd have the crew.

Note that I made a logic mistake: I assumed that the smaller Wolfound would have a smaller crew than a Roland. Thanks to Galactic Supper for pointing to the right information. That means the Wolfhound may actually not be as bad as I'd thought for Silesia.

From what little we've been told - piracy is all but gone in Silensia.

1st, Pirates have no safe ports to repair, replenish or hock their prizes anymore. Pirates need a supply chain for parts and repairs, and a place to turn their catches into money and that is not to be found in Silesia any more.

2nd, The Governments have been cleared up, replaced, and replaced again. Oligarchs which tried to cross their fingers and take the oath to obey while winking furiously have been slapped down hard when they tried to pull a "buisness as normal" approach. So no one is left supporting Pirates and corrupting the official responce to them at high levels because they are getting kickbacks from them.

3rd, The RMN is running a patrol corridor from a system's planets to the Hyperlimit and heavily patroling a volume at the hyperlimit nearest the least time run to the planet and back. This has been widly published and all legimitate traffic is using these corridors. The Andermani are probably doing something similiar. So, without punching out roving RMN forces of LACS and light to medium combatants, you can't get to the merchies.

4th, the SCN is gone. the planetary SDFs are gone. Their weak practices are over, and having a planetary SDF or SCN ship change vocations - either permanently or just for the day, is not going to happen anymore.

5th the dozens of shipyards are now directly under the Andermani and RMN thumb. The common practice was to lose ships during construction, or build 2 ship while only one is official, or refit and lose a ship which was decommishioned and "sent" to the breakers. Any way - this has all come to a stop. All the shipyards are being controlled and watched and the normal channels for new pirate and privateer ships has been dried up.

So the face of Piracy in Manticore's back yard, and the way the RMN has to deal with it, has changed. The chance of capturing said vessels or their victims is plumeting. Now with the fall of Mesa, Slavers may be a thing of the past too. So the RMN has to ask - does it still make sense to field ships and crews to fight a policing war in someone else's space now that you have potentially dealt with the root of the problem?

kzt wrote:You are completely right. Mid 18th century a woman named Gertrude Kruger became the SC premier and started a very serious anti-corruption drive, kicked out the pirates and the governments that supported them, reformed elections across the Confederacy, created significant economic growth, and her government was mostly assassinated by "unknown forces" in August of 1772.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:You are completely right. Mid 18th century a woman named Gertrude Kruger became the SC premier and started a very serious anti-corruption drive, kicked out the pirates and the governments that supported them, reformed elections across the Confederacy, created significant economic growth, and her government was mostly assassinated by "unknown forces" in August of 1772.

Where was that?